Registered: 12/12/08
Posts: 304
Loc: sorry, but I don't say on the ...

Alright, I felt like I needed to sound this out because it's driving me ape-shit and I'm tired of feeling the way I've felt for the past week.

I know it's not uncommon to struggle with sexual identity, and that looking at gay porn is one of the ways of acting out. What drives me nuts is that if I look at it ONCE and get remotely aroused by anything, I go from anxiety mode to "fuck yeah get off to that" and then afterward feel like total shit. Deep down I really believe that I'm straight on the spectrum, I think maybe a Kinsey 2 if you're familiar with that. But this behavior is making it very very difficult for me to believe that. When I first started with gay porn as a semi regular habit at 17 or 18 the stuff I was watching mirrors one of the more vivid memories of my molestation, which was when my cousin jerked off in front of me. I was prepubescent, he wasn't. I knew I shouldn't have been there because I thought "I would def. get in trouble if somebody walked in right now, and so would he" but I was curious to see what this "ejaculation" thing he was talking about was and kept watching. Then when he came I was amazed, and it looked really pleasurable to my 8(9?,10?) year old brain at the time.

Later at 11 I started jerkin off, although I had been trying since I had first seen that happen. Here's the kicker. I didn't start masturbating cause of a crush on a girl or thinking about sex and being curious. I did it cause my cousin could and I wanted to also. For ages I tried to mirror everything he did that time he did it in front of me EXACTLY, same spot in the room, facing the same way, same techniques, everything. So when I started watching solo male jerk off porn I kinda figured that since it was so out of left field for me that's probably where it came from, like I'm going back to it. I just wonder why even though I've identified that I can't stop the behavior. Most times I watch it, I'm not aroused until the money shot, although if the person in question had the same body type as I viewed my cousin as having or moved the same way, I get very aroused. Again, I see the connection there but I don't know why it's there or how to stop it.

It's not semi-regular anymore now, it's more like I'll go weeks or months without watching it, get curious once and check it out to see what happens, and will then have to keep watching and checking compulsively until I feel like I have watched several videos without being aroused. This can often lead to 3 or more hours in a row of watching gay porn, and if it starts at jerk off porn, it often does inevitably lead to gay porn. When this happens, if I'm questioning my sexuality I will make myself get off to the porn no matter how slight the arousal is, even if I feel no connection at all to what I'm watching. I suppose I do get into gay porn, but it's very different and very alien from when I get into straight porn, and afterwards I always feel awful if I watch gay porn. I know that that is because something you are adverse to, afraid of, or don't like triggers certain reactions in your brain, and when you orgasm in that state it's typically amplified. In other words, you get rewarded for doing something you don't like by the pleasure circuitry in your brain, even if you scare the shit out of yourself in the process. Apparently this is how sex addicts and porn addicts start with being fine with a few naked pictures and then escalate to a BDSM fetish or watching animal porn. I feel like this is what's going on when I watch gay porn.

If I feel absolutely affirmed that I am straight, I can follow the same pattern, but oddly will not get aroused, and if I do it will be inconsequential, like it won't last for more than a few seconds. The last time this happened I actually made myself watch it for three days straight for probably at least 5 hours a day watching literally every video just to make sure. I had to be that thorough. Although I felt relief from it for a long time, it eventually snuck back and i had to check it out again.

On that same trade, ordinary plain old nude photos of women, or sometimes even if they're clothed, get me very aroused. Naked pictures of men, no matter how good looking I acknowledge them as being, don't turn me on at all. But if we cross over into the video form of media, it's a fucking crapshoot. I am so beyond sick of this behavior. I don't want to keep perpetuating this cycle. I did it again last night and woke up and couldn't go back to sleep for two hours because my mind kept wandering to the porn I watched and I kept waking up anxious every time I shut my eyes.

Can any of you relate to this? My molestation stopped years ago, but when you guys talk about your inner child I feel like I'm the perp now abusing my own inner child by staying locked in to this cycle and doing these things I don't want to do to myself. Another example, I knew for a fact after the first time I tried it that I do NOT like trying to massage my prostate, even though people claim the orgasms are explosive. I know I don't enjoy it one bit and it doesn't do anything for me. But that still doesn't stop me from trying once in a long while. Why the hell do I have such a hard time saying "you don;t like it" and then not letting it go even though I can't stand it?

Here's the last one, this one my Mom dropped on me the night before Christmas eve. She asked me how I was, and I told her I was down again, and she goes "You know, are you sure you were molested? Sometimes kids play doctor with each other just to be curious, has your therapist ever suggested that? YOur cousin is only TWO years older than you". My response was "Mom, after thinking about it very carefully there are things kids do when they play doctor that encompass a normal range of curiousity. This was WAY beyond 'playing doctor', and after describing in depth to my therapist what went on, she didn't ask because she agreed with me. Would you like me to go into detail for you?" And she goes "No, no, sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I'm your mother not your therapist, I'll believe you you and you don't need to give me details".

First the dialogue. This is the THIRD time this has happened. The first was when I told both my parents in fourth grade what happening to me. I distinctly remember them keeping a close eye on me and my cousin to make sure things didn't get out of hand. Yet all these years later, they seem to have completely forgotten about it. This "are you sure it was as bad as you said it was" discussion has happened twice in the past year now with my Mother and I. She's a therapist herself, and she goes from being so supportive and helpful to trying completely invalidate or repress everything that happened to me. I fucking sat on that for 11 years and wondered why the hell I was falling apart on the inside and driving myself crazy, and then out of the blue I get "well maybe it wasn't so bad". Fuck that.

Second thing. I thought my cousin was 4 years older than me that whole time. I'm not sure if two years even makes a difference. Turns out he was 4 years ahead of me in school, but only two years older. I have never been angry about it towards him since this day though. He wasn't an adult and neither was I, we were both kids. I truly believe somebody was doing fucked up shit to him, and that I was just a victim of his acting out. I remember one time he was talking about his "friend with 'prematurely' grey hair" who was showing him all this 'stuff'. I wish we could speak about it now, but he's bipolar manic depressive and is all over the place. If I ever found out who did it to him, causing both of our lives to be fucking destroyed, I would like to introduce that mans face to the pavement. I'll never know though.

Please, leave comments. I could really use the feedback on trying to kick these behaviors, unless you guys think that the behaviors are fine but there's something else at work. Either way, I'd love some honest feedback. I'm at the end of my rope and I won't see my T for another couple of weeks so I would love any suggestions.

Andy:Was the extent of the molestation by your cousin watching him masturbate? Was there any physical contact between the two of you? It sounds like you really got aroused to the sight of his masturbation and it was a powerful experience for you.

Quote:

On that same trade, ordinary plain old nude photos of women, or sometimes even if they're clothed, get me very aroused. Naked pictures of men, no matter how good looking I acknowledge them as being, don't turn me on at all. But if we cross over into the video form of media, it's a fucking crapshoot.

The lack of reaction to still pix of males is not the same as the action shots (like you witnessed with your cousin). Like your assessment as a Kinsey 2 (predominently heterosexual?) and the above comment, I'd say you appear to be heterosexual but had a strong turn-on to watching your cousin. Making that kind of connection is something that a lot of survivors have around here and causes confusion on orientation.

Can you/do you fantasize about females when you masturbate? What's your relationship like with your cousin today? Do you think you could talk with him about this?

This should open some discussion here with other guys having struggles with porn.

"I have never been angry about it towards him since this day though. He wasn't an adult and neither was I, we were both kids. I truly believe somebody was doing fucked up shit to him, and that I was just a victim of his acting out."

Andy, I relate to this a lot. My abuse was almost 3 years older than me, and still a child. I finally confronted him and found out he'd been abused. I never, every thought to consider that before I got into recovery.

I do agree what activtities the abuser has you engage in are often the area of struggle for acting out, regardless of your orientation. Things get imprinted on you somehow. A first experience is very powerful. Someone you look up to and admire is very powerful. Your little mind can't process all those feelings. What you know is that he wouldn't hurt me, so it must really be ok.

You sound straight to me, but the danger is that the acting out can become progressive, harming other areas of your life. Therapy and support and being able to talk about this are important I think, so I'm glad you are here.

AndyI first got my computer after learning Ms Word and Xl then i found out about porn on the net and i had to sign up, being gay I had a ball, no pun intended, I never felt guilty looking at such sites and now spend little time doing so. However i can relate to your experiences of being introduced to sexual behaviour and feeling bad, guilty and dirty. I have fond memory's of one abuser and now realise that what he did was wrong, that he introduced me to something I wasnt mature enough to handle. It seems that you see what you are doing as acting out and shameful. I am of an age where I can remember pin up girls in skimpy costumes as almost hardcore porn and they were in most auto repair shops every where, so in my view looking at porn as a male thing going back for many years. This would posibly not be a problem for you if you had not been abused and made to feel uncomfortable as a child, put the blame where it belongs at your abuser and the person that abused him and give yourself a break.I'm sorry that your Mother is unable to give you what you need, I wonder if she is carrying guilt in that she wasn't able to protect you, even if she is a therapist, they have hang ups too. That being said good on you for sticking up for your validation re what happened to you.Keep up the good work and try to remember that you are doing the best you can, or you wouldn't be posting here.

Registered: 12/12/08
Posts: 304
Loc: sorry, but I don't say on the ...

To Ken Singer, yes there was physical contact, but not when he masturbated. There was a period of time where what went on was what I would call the "doctor" period, and that was more or less just the two of us sitting there checking each other out the way some little kids do. There was an element of mystery there because he wasn't circumcised and I was, so we used to wonder what was different. Eventually that moved into frotteurism initiated by him when people weren't around, and at the same time everytime I had to use the toilet he would come and watch, and if he had to use the bathroom he would ask me to come in and watch, and then he would fondle me. Don't remember if I fondled him, I assume I probably did though.

From then on it progressed to him trying to sleep naked in the same bed as me when he stayed over. Around that same time he would frequently pester me to give him oral sex, which I refused. Then he would ask if he could do it on me, which I again refused, but eventually he would always wear me down and then do it on me or have me do it to him.

Then there was the aforementioned masturbation incident, which is one of the most vivid memories I have. I wouldn't describe how I felt as turned on, but I was definitely kind of in awe of how he could do that, how his penis got larger, etc. Also the first time I ever saw somebody ejaculate semen, so there were a lot of "firsts" right there for me. He never tried to make me do it to him or made me try to do it, just told me that one day I would be able to do it when I got to puberty and started turning into a man or something along those lines. Then for years I would obsess about being inadequate because I couldn't ejaculate as far as he did, my penis wasn't as big, etc etc. And I remembered I was literally obsessed with trying to make it bigger and hoping and wishing it would get bigger, etc. Then when I first started masturbating I felt guilty because I connected it then with my "perverted cousin", but it felt so good and it was so much fun. Of course once I figured out most boys did it then I felt much better, but I still felt inadequate. Even today I do sometimes, but I know I'm average and don't worry much about it.

Anyways, the last of it that I can remember was when asked if any of us (me, my sister, and his sister) were willing to have sex with him. I knew that sex was supposedly something a man did with a woman to make a baby and that people who loved each other did it, so when my female cousin and my sister said no, I said ok, because I figured I had already been down that road and men couldn't have sex anyways because they couldn't get pregnant. He tried to penetrate me, but I remember it feeling really cold so I yelped a little bit and said I didn't want to do it. Then he asked if I wanted to do it to him, so I said ok I'd try. I stood there with my penis right there but had no erection (don't ever recall having one during any of these episodes, just later when it stopped) and couldn't penetrate him, and that's when my Mom opened the bathroom door and we both pulled our pants up and said nothing was going on. Next I saw him after that I must have been a little older than 10 or 11, and actually got an erection right when I saw him. I still can't figure that one out, but by that point since the abuse had ended there was a period of time where I just assumed, since I hadn't had many friends, that examining your friends penis and all that other shit was kind of normal but not talked about. I never ever connected it to a sexual thing until later in my teens, it was just an aspect some guys apparently had in their friendships, even though after my cousin I never had another relationship like that. Confusing huh?

We still saw each other a lot, but after I told him that my parents knew about everything that happened cause I got scared, things changed and the sexual stuff stopped and by all accounts we had a normal relationship for a few years. That was also when one of my other cousins who was a little bit older than the first one would come and visit us from Scotland during the holidays, and the three of us just used to hang out and rough house and have a good time in general. It was like he was there to be my older cousins closer older friend, and so I stopped getting that "attention" if you want to call it that. Then when I was around 14 I stopped seeing the cousin who was molesting me because he got diagnosed as being bipolar manic/depressive and his family just stopped coming around.

Then my parents split, his parents split, and I don't think I saw him again for another three or four years, and by then he was just an utter train wreck. Gained tons of weight, visibly depressed, and just awkward to be around.

It was also around that time that my Scottish cousin stopped coming around as much, and until this very moment I don't think I ever realized that for all the damage that the first cousin did, the Scottish one kind of helped to undo. He often gave me tips on how to pick up girls, such gems as "listen man, if you really want to get a lady and you're desperate, just lower your standards a bit and find some other chick who you know is dying to get laid and get it out of the way and get some practice under your belt". But it wasn't creepy, it was in a funny context. He also often called my favorite kinds of music "Christian Child Eating-Church Burning Devil Music", which is odd because he looked like more of a metal head than I did. He was a bit of a relief though, a normal cousin who wasn't trying to fuck with me who was like a cool older brother type figure. But anyways, right around the time he went back to Scotland the molester cousin showed up again and it was just strange. Still see him every few years, and he's more depressed and out there and disconnected every time I see him. I don't think talking to him is an option, and given the laundry list of mental disorders he has going on I don't think I could have any sort of productive conversation with him.

I'm not sure confrontation would do anything at this point. When I told him the jig was up it was long before my mind started putting a sexual spin on those experiences, and when they did become sexualized by me trying to "become"(right expression?) like my cousin, who I suppose I saw as the end all be all of male sexual prowess for some reason, that was when I realized something bizarre was going on from those parts of my childhood that "weren't a big deal".

Also, this is odd but I figured I'd put this out there, often times the kids who picked on me the worst in middle school or high school after that were kids I would fantasize about having sex with each other. I guess in a way that was my way of seeing them as being emasculated, and I think that made me feel like I wasn't this big wimp that they were making me out to be, they were the "fags", not me, even though thats what they called me. Physcially I was enormous compared to most kids I went to school with. At 13 I was 5'9" and 175 pounds. Why I felt intimidated or threatened by these other kids I will never know, but that was the pattern. Of course over time I think I got used to that and confused it with sexual behavior, and then it became that any person I felt like I wanted to be friends with so I could be one of the "cool" kids I would have the same kind of fantasy about. One of my therapists says that often occurs in some boys who have never been abused but just want greater acceptance or recognition from their peers.

Anyways, to sum it up, I didn't feel turned on physically by any of the things my cousin did to me until after the abuse. After those experiences I would try and find anything with a hole in it that I thought I could fit my penis into to try and "have sex with it". Dry humping stuff too, but in like third grade. Then I also had penetration fantasies about a penis going into a vagina, that was it. Disembodied organs fucking. My friendship boundaries were pretty screwed up for a long time too, because for a long time my only consistent friendship was with my cousin. That behavior was all I really knew for a friendship. I'm just dying to finally work through this and gain enough strength to just move on with my life and see it all fall away. I'm also lonely, I want a relationship, and my gut feels it should be with a girl who I can really trust who will really love and accept the hurtin' son of a bitch that I am. I'm trying to find that little kid inside of me and trying to comfort him and tell him he's ok and nobody has the power to hurt him again, and that he's strong and always was strong, he just got manipulated and ended up getting lost. Sorry to ramble, it's late, I have work in the morning, and this has been on my mind for the past week. Tahnk you all for the input though.

I've mentioned before, i began to watch it when i was 14 and until the age of 22 i led a double masturbatory life: if i got off over still images it was always women, if i got off over porn it was always gay porn, if i got off over a celebrity on TV it was always women

After 8 years of this i had a complete breakdown about my sexuality. This led to an absolute obsession with watching gay porn or looking at pictures of naked men for hours on end to check my reactions. If i got aroused, i was gay. If i didn't, i was straight etc. It damaged my health and my social skills, and i had to leave my job over it. And sometimes, yes, when my self esteem was low i would masturbate over the images or the porn

I think the best thing to do is get a porn blocker on your PC, there's a very good one called K9 where you can type words in so you can't search for them anymore aswell, as these learned behaviours get easier to stop over time

Registered: 12/12/08
Posts: 304
Loc: sorry, but I don't say on the ...

Not a horrible idea. Honestly, this is the only addictive behavior I've ever had a hard time stopping. Literally everything else, alcohol, pills, all of that I quit at will cold turkey and never went back. It's just too bad I let this spiral out of control to the point where it's dominating my life and I can't even tell whether or not it's the real me or something I've created.

Andy:Don't know if you are seeing a therapist now but a lot of the concerns and experiences you've posted about are pretty normal. If you can seperate out the abuse from the more "normal" sexualized behaviors and perhaps not beat up on yourself, you may see yourself with fewer problems. That you are apparently able and willing to talk about these things here says alot about your strengths.

Registered: 12/12/08
Posts: 304
Loc: sorry, but I don't say on the ...

Yes, I am currently seeing a therapist who has worked with sexual abuse/molestation victims before. Right now the process is trying to identify negative cognitions about myself to try and remove the negative charge from them, and also I think the goal is to eventually de-traumatize the period of molestation itself and the acts it encompassed. All of this is being done with talk therapy and EMDR to try and figure out whats going on.

Also, yes, I can and do fantasize about females. Sadly the trend more often since the proverbial shit hit the fan is me watching porn because if I fantasize when I try to get off instead of watching porn I just end up confusing myself. If I'm fantasizing about a woman I'll be doing fine and then I'll think "well I'll switch over to fantasizing about men to see what happens" and then that normally kills my erection for a while, but of course if I stay it long enough something always happens. But anyways, yeah, when I'm not questioning my identity I fantasize and get aroused to/by women. Also, on the rare occasion I actually hook up with a girl, I get really nervous but after a while if I can relax a little bit things tend to go very well. Apparently for my relative lack of experience with women at 21 I'm not too shabby, making out or pillow talk. Still haven't had much feedback on the sex though. My ex girlfriend claims it was by no means bad, but since we were both virgins when we met it was a little clumsy. I guess it was decent though. Go figure.

As far as if I've ever interacted with other guys, not since my cousin in any kind of contact. There was a friend of mine from a summer camp I went to and we sometimes used to do like a one on one circle jerk kind of thing but we weren't in love with each other, didn't touch each other or anything like that. I don't think that experience was all that uncommon from what a lot of other twelve year olds experiment with when they're just starting to figure out how things are working down south. Other than that, I don't recally having any bigtime crushes on any guys I knew. Then again, I don't remember any huge ones I girl either, but I def. had a few smaller ones. It wasn't like I was obsessed with them and had to have them though, just though it'd be nice if I could have gone out with them, dated, etc. Never allowed myself too though cause I would tell myself I wasn't good enough for whatever reason. Not old enough, too nice, not attractive enough, blah blah blah whatever, all of that BS. I still suck at talking to women but I'm good enough at making stuff up to try and get around it without being really awkward.

Also, I figure the only way I can ever feel better or start to heal is if I'm totally honest with everything that's happened. It's tough to disclose a lot of stuff like this because it does bother me, but how could I ever get help for it if I never spoke about it, right? That's all I can think to tack on here at the moment.

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